When It Falls
by Skylar Vega
Summary: Takes place 5 years from now. Is it ever too late? [JC, EC]
1. Chapter 1

When It Falls  
By Skylar

--

_In married life three is company and two none.  
-- Oscar Wilde_

--

12:34 am.

She sat in the living room watching the clock on the wall, and the tick tock of the seconds hand reverberated through the house loudly, but she didn't move. She didn't move when the headlights of his car illuminated the living room and she didn't move when she heard the garage door open and close. She watched the seconds tickle by, her hands under her chin, elbows on her knees, and she finally looked towards the front door when she heard it open.

He threw his keys on the table by the door and left his jacket there, too. She watched him, wondering how many times she would have to tell him his jacket belonged in the closet. She began to realize now that if he hadn't learned to put it away in the last five years, he probably never would.

"It's 12:30," she informed him.

Jake looked up, momentarily taken aback by her presence, but then sighed, putting his hands on his hips. "We have a new case."

She nodded and stood up. "I have a new case, too. I have two, actually."

He began to shake his head, a bitter smile on his face. "I'm not gonna do this, Calleigh."

She nodded, looking away and crossing her arms in front of her. "I'm not asking you to stop working—"

"Calleigh."

"—I'm not even," she stopped, feeling frustrated and angry and ten other things she couldn't identify. She took a deep breath to collect herself. "What I want is for you to be a part of this marriage."

"What?" he exclaimed, taken aback by her comment and then chuckling bitterly. "This is—this is what you're asking me, to be apart of this marriage?" He laughed again, and without waiting for her reply he began his journey up the stairs. She followed. "You're a work of art, Calleigh, did you know that? A real work of art."

"Keep your voice down," she hissed at him.

"No," he exclaimed, walking into their room, "I will not keep my voice down, I'm tired of keeping my voice down."

Calleigh followed him and closed the door softly behind her. "Jake—"

"What? You waited up for me, you obviously wanna get into this," he said. "So let's get into it."

Calleigh gave him a steely look, hundreds of thoughts rushing through her head and voices telling her this was bad and she should calm down, go to bed so they could talk calmly in the morning, but she was tired, tired of living like this, tired of waiting for everything to fix itself. She lived her life on the sidelines, watching it come undone without intervening and she was tried.

"Where were you tonight?" she said, looking down and fearing the answer, her heart beating fast.

Jake chuckled, shaking his head and looking away. "Yeah, that's right. I was out late, I must be cheating on you," he said bitterly. "How about you, honey? Hell, I'm gone all the time, house is empty, you getting a little action on the side?"

She took a deep breath, her jaw clenching and her eyebrows furrowing. She felt the anger like bile on the back of her throat and she wanted nothing more than to slap him, right there, shred him to pieces, but she held back and balled her hands into fists.

"How dare you say that. How would you know what goes on in this house? You're _never_ here," she exclaimed.

"Oh, Calleigh," Jake said bitterly. "I may work too much but that's my biggest problem. I may never be in this house but you've _never_ been in this marriage and I'm sick of it! I'm sick of trying to make this work, I'm sick of coming home and seeing that look on your face—I'm—" he stopped, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "I'm done."

Calleigh watched as he walked to the walk-in closet and opened the door with a little too much force, it banged against the wall and her eyes widened when he came back out with a bag. "What are you—"

"I can't do this," Jake said, opening drawers and throwing a bunch of his clothes in the bag. "I can't live like this, maybe you can but I can't. I can't," he sighed.

"So leaving, that's—that's your solution," she breathed out.

Jake shook his head and looked at her. "Why the hell not? I've tried everything else, nothing seems to work, what's keeping me here, Calleigh?"

She looked at him, and it seemed like he wasn't really waiting—nor hoping—for a response. Quickly he filled the bag and she crossed her arms in front of her as he zipped it close, and though she felt sick inside she remained cool on the outside.

"If you walk out that door—that's it," she warned him.

Jake looked at her. Her expression was cold, her posture defensive, and he tried to look for anything that might cause him to change his mind, but it was futile. He shook his head and began to walk away. "Bye, Calleigh."

She didn't watch him go. He rushed his way down the stairs and her body jumped slightly when she heard the front door slam shut. She breathed out then, sat on her bed, her eyes closed, her heart in her throat and her pulse quick, her breathing erratic.

She heard the garage door open again and he was gone.

Calleigh ran her hand through her forehead, and though her fingers were shaky she tried to breathe slowly to keep herself together. She wasn't going to be one of those women, sobbing and wailing for their departed husbands, desperate and desolate and pathetic. She refused to be like that. She was much stronger than that and she knew it. She was better than that, more resilient than that.

"Mommy?"

Calleigh looked up quickly, and her 4-year-old daughter was shyly standing by the door. She instantly plastered a bright smile upon her face, vainly trying to conceal her worry. "Hey, baby."

Annabel looked at her mom with uncertainty, looked at the few pieces of her father's clothing scattered on the floor, and she bit the corner of her mouth anxiously.

"Come here," Calleigh said and the girl ran into her arms. She held her tight, trying not to cry and trying to keep it together because the last thing she wanted was to make her daughter think there was something wrong. She spent her own childhood hearing her parents yell at each other day in and day out, and she didn't want that for Annabel, she didn't want her daughter to have the childhood she had, she didn't want her to grow up too fast and feel too old at such a young age.

So she took a deep breath, feeling anxious and crushed and scared but trying not to show it. She set Annabel down, smiling and running her hands through her daughter's blonde hair, kissing her forehead and holding her little hands like she was her lifeline.

"What do you say we go on a trip," she said.

Annabel's green eyes opened wide and she jumped in place, excited. "To Disney World?!"

"No," Calleigh laughed. She felt her nose runny and sniffed, ignoring the slight wetness in her eyes. "Let's go—let's go farther than that, let's drive for a really long time with the windows down and eat gummy bears in the car."

Annabel giggled happily. "Okay!"

"Okay," Calleigh smiled. Sniffing one last time she stood up, scooping her daughter in her arms. She took a deep breath and let it out. "Okay."

_to be continued_


	2. Chapter 2

When It Falls: Chapter 2  
By Skylar

She glanced at the backseat through the rearview mirror and Annabel was still asleep in her booster seat. The sun had risen out of the horizon a few hours back and she felt her eyelids heavy. Calleigh looked around, wondering where she could get her hands on the biggest, strongest cup of coffee, but before deciding to get off the highway she reached for her phone.

Taking a deep breath, she dialed familiar numbers. The road was beginning to get crowded, and she looked through the side mirror as she waited for a reply.

"Caine."

"Horatio, it's Calleigh."

"Calleigh, what can I do for you?"

She hesitated for a moment, but having rehearsed the conversation a few times now she forced herself to continue. She could falter and stumble and fall, but never in front of Horatio Caine. "I'm sorry to call you like this, but something came up and I'm going to need some time off."

Horatio stopped a moment. "Um, alright," he said hesitantly. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes," she said, feeling obliged to smile. "I, um, I have a couple of weeks worth of vacation saved up. I know this isn't practical, me calling like this—"

"That's alright, no worries," Horatio said. "I'll just, uh, I'll get the guys to cover for you."

"I appreciate that."

"And if you need anything just call."

She smiled appreciatively. "Thank you."

"Hang in there."

He hung up before she had the chance to say something else and she put the cell phone back in the passenger's seat. Having taken care of that she felt a little relieved, but she could feel the beginning of a headache looming and she still felt immensely anxious, not knowing what had happen or what would happen. She couldn't function properly living in uncertainty, not seeing a clear path in front of her. Some people relished living in the moment, making decisions in the blink of an eye, but Calleigh spent most of her grown up life intricately planning her days, weeks. It was her security blanket, the only way she knew how to live.

And now she found herself on a road trip with no destination, her small child in the back seat, and she began to wonder if she should turn around and go home. It's one thing to be spontaneous when you're young and carefree, but having a child now she depended on her ability to keep everything under control, follow a familiar routine. She wanted Annabel to feel safe, and the only way Calleigh knew how to do that was by making sure everything, every second of her life, was well thought-out in advance.

And yet the idea of going home made her feel even more stifled than her sporadic decision to leave. It hit her like a ton of bricks that she didn't want to see her house again, didn't want to lie down in bed and smell him on her pillow. She didn't want to see his toiletries in their bathroom, didn't want to find any evidence that he'd ever existed, that they'd ever existed together.

She didn't want to go home and admit failure. She didn't want the world to know her marriage had crumbled to pieces and the great Calleigh Duquesne couldn't figure out a way to put it back together.

So she kept driving, and when her body couldn't make it without caffeine any longer she stopped at a popular diner right off the road.

Annabel was still sleeping when Calleigh opened the car door. She attempted to wake the child but was only rewarded with a frown and Annabel kept on sleeping. She and Jake had always been such light sleepers, she didn't know why it always took her forever to wake her daughter up. She figured it was the byproduct of being four years old and having no worries.

"Come on, let's get some food."

Annabel moaned in protest and Calleigh sighed, removed the booster seat's straps and carried her into the restaurant. The waitress found them a booth by the window and Annabel's eyes instantly shot open when the waitress handed her a piece of paper and a few crayons. Calleigh was pleased that her daughter remembered to say thank you without her having to drill her about it, and Annabel's sleepiness was instantly forgotten as she began to draw. She wondered if there was ever a time in her life when three crayons and a piece of paper ever made her that happy. She couldn't remember.

"What can I get for you?"

Calleigh looked up at the waitress, a vivacious thing that couldn't be older than 20. She felt old and tired. "Can I get a cup of coffee, black, and a glass of chocolate milk?"

"Sure thing."

"Look, mommy!" Annabel said, excited, as she showed her mother a picture of what could've been a dolphin, if it weren't for the weird tail it sported in the back.

"That's great, babe," Calleigh replied and Annabel happily went back to her drawing. She smiled to herself, glad that so far Annabel hadn't asked any questions about her father, or where they were going, for that matter. She was often surprised that her daughter didn't seem to concern herself with adult matters and rather spent most of her time entertaining herself with make believe tea parties and imaginary friends, when at four Calleigh had spent most of her time worrying about her parents volatile marriage and taking care of her baby brother.

She didn't know it was possible to live a happy childhood until Annabel came along, and though the child spent most of her time laughing and playing Calleigh still worried, especially now. She wanted Annabel to live the childhood she never got to live, and her disastrous fight with Jake had threatened to take that away. She worried about that more than she worried about anything else.

Her cell phone suddenly began to vibrate before it started to ring. Calleigh's heart sank, because the last thing she wanted to do now was deal with Jake or answer the hundreds of questions she knew he'd fire at her. She didn't wanna have to explain her decision to leave (mostly because she didn't have one) and she didn't want to get into another argument with him, not in front of Annabel.

Calleigh looked at the phone on the table, and the words 'Eric Delko' flashed on the screen instead. She bit her lip, fingers nervously playing with each other as the phone continued to chime. She wondered if Horatio had mentioned anything about her sudden need to take a 'vacation' or if the call was work related. Not wanting to risk it, she hesitantly reached for the phone and turned it off.

Annabel looked at the phone questioningly and then at her mother, but Calleigh smiled and leaned forward. "You want chocolate chip pancakes?"

"Yeah!" Annabel said, her curiosity forgotten.

Twenty minutes later she found herself playing with her food as Annabel rambled on about the life of her new friend the dogphin. She smiled when she deemed it necessary, didn't have to say much because Annabel talked enough for the both of them. It was tiring, normally, but this time she welcomed the distraction that her daughter's active imagination provided.

They walked outside, Annabel skipping all the way to the car, and protecting her to-go coffee cup, Calleigh strapped her daughter back in and sat behind the wheel. She turned on the engine, stared at the road in front of her, and in a moment of inexplicable need she reached for her cell phone and turned it on. There was a new message in her inbox and she didn't have to hear it to know who it was from. Taking a deep breath, she hesitantly stared at the screen for a few seconds before she shook her head, flipped it close and threw it at the bottom of her purse.

She pulled out of the parking lot and continued her journey up north, wearier than before.

_to be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

When It Falls: Chapter 3  
By Skylar

There was a road sign in front of her, asking her to make an important decision. 

Calleigh read it over and over again, using her thumb to crack her fingers over the steering wheel. The light would turn green at any moment and she thought it unfair that life was laying upon her another one of its conundrums, and she only had 15 seconds to come up with an answer.

She thought she could head north, maybe book a hotel in Atlanta and be a tourist for once, take her daughter to museums and parks and just relax, lay low for a while, sleep, regroup, and go back home.

She could go west, finally see how much New Orleans had changed, look up a few of her old friends and forget about Miami for a while. She could go to New Orleans. She could go further than that.

She turned around, giving her daughter a questioning look, but Annabel was too busy playing with her doll to notice her mother's dilemma. Calleigh returned her attention to the red light, and in three, two, one seconds it turned green again. She hesitated, and when the car behind her honked its horn she snapped out of her confusion and a voice inside of her screamed at her to head north.

She turned west.

* * *

Very little changes in the South. 

Buildings rise and fall and roads are built and destroyed, but that air remains the same, that feeling that tries to convince you you've stepped into another world. Still the same people with their old habits, the fifty year old thrift store on the main road. She recognized the smell of corn bread from that bakery in the corner where she would get a hasty breakfast for her brothers, and she wondered if the old owner was still there, suddenly remembered the old tab that at 12 she promised she would one day pay him.

Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel nervously as she asked herself why her car was making its way into Darnell, Louisiana.

The street extended vastly in front of her and she knew if she continued on it she could go further west. As a teenager she spent so much time walking this very street, looking east and west, counting the minutes until she could pack her bags and leave this place behind. So many memories, not all of them bad, but this town represented a period of her life she wasn't always particularly fond of. Not that it didn't have its good moments, she noted quickly as she passed the movie theater where Billy Duggan had given her her first kiss. Home wasn't always a great place to be, but it was still home.

She didn't know why she found herself turning right on the beat up road at the end of the street. A part of her told her this was the past, and the past never changes. It sits there contemplating its consequences upon the present and the future, never wavering.

Another part of her desperately needed to see it, needed to live it again and breathe it, show it how much she changed, how much she had grown, how much stronger she was now. She needed to put it to rest. She never realized how much it still weighed down on her until now.

Very little changes in the South.

Her mother still insisted on hanging potted plants from the gutters of their old house. Calleigh's teenage protestations had yet to have an effect and the old house was still painted that ugly green color that made it look like some sort of 19th century brothel. Her eyes quickly spotted the ridiculous mail box in the shape of a duck along the picket fence, and they'd yet to cover the path that lead to the house with pavement. Nothing had changed, she realized quickly. It was still the same old house with the same willow tree next to it, the same swing hanging from its sturdiest branch that her father put there when she was three.

She wondered what else hadn't changed.

She'd yet to turn off the engine when the front door opened, and Calleigh held her breath as her mother walked out of the house, placing her hand atop her forehead as if that would allow her to recognize the SUV parking outside. It wasn't until Calleigh climbed out of her car that her mother took a deep breath, a smile creeping upon her face. Calleigh tried to keep a safe distance from her emotions, letting Annabel out of the car, and before she knew it her mother was in front of her, her hand on her chest and looking at her daughter with so much emotion Calleigh had a hard time maintaining eye contact.

Vivian Duquesne's expression quickly turned into concern as she studied her daughter's face carefully, pinning Calleigh's hair behind her ear tenderly but almost scared to touch her. "You look tired," she noted.

Calleigh smiled tightly and shook her head. "I've been driving for 19 hours, mama."

But Vivian frowned slightly, giving her daughter an almost pitiful look. "That's not it."

Calleigh looked down but said nothing, ran her hand through her daughter's blond hair, directing her mother's attention towards Annabel. Vivian smiled brightly, looking at Calleigh with a smile she had rarely seen even as a child.

Vivian knelt in front of her granddaughter, appreciating her lovingly from head to toes before she looked up at Calleigh. "Can I?"

Calleigh nodded, hesitantly allowing a small smile on her lips as she watched her mother pick Annabel in her arms and hold her tight, tears quickly pooling in her eyes. Annabel had no problems embracing her grandmother back, Calleigh quickly noted, though she knew her daughter had no idea who the woman holding her was. Often Calleigh was troubled by the child's quick way of warming up to strangers, but at four Annabel had yet learned how to be shy.

"Look at you. Oh, you are so beautiful," Vivian said, pulling back and admiring her granddaughter's face again. "I haven't seen you since you were just a tiny baby."

Annabel grinned at her grandmother. "You talk funny."

Vivian laughed. "Well, why don't you stay here a while, you'll learn to sound just like me, alright?"

Annabel chuckled and looked at her mother, and Calleigh smiled at her.

"Well, come on in, you must be starving," Vivian said hurriedly.

Calleigh shook her head. "Mama--"

"Travis can get your bags for you," Vivian said, holding her daughter's hand and pulling her towards the house.

Calleigh's eyes widened. "Travis still lives here?"

Vivian stopped, setting Annabel on the ground. "Of course he does. Where is he going to go?"

"Uh, I don't know, maybe get his own place, get married?" Calleigh said.

"He's a special boy, needs a girl just as special as him. Besides, I don't mind the company," Vivian said dismissively and turned to the house. "TRAVIS!"

"Jesus, mama," Calleigh muttered, thankful they didn't have close neighbors.

A few seconds later a lanky dark-haired young man appeared on the porch, stopping only to narrow his eyes at the women in front of him before he smiled brightly. "Well, well, well, Calleigh Duquesne."

Calleigh smiled as her younger brother made his way over, stopping in front of her to give her a look before he picked her up in his arms, threw her over his shoulder, and spun her around abruptly. "Travis," she complained, struggling to get down and hearing Annabel chuckling.

Vivian frowned and tried to swat at them. "Stop that right now, you're gonna hurt yourselves."

"What? She used to do the same thing to me," Travis said, finally setting Calleigh down, her hair now messy and an annoyed look on her face. "Now that looks like the old Calleigh I know: dirty and crabby."

Annabel giggled again and Travis looked down at her, gave her a funny look and turned to Calleigh. "This my niece?" he asked and Calleigh rolled her eyes and nodded, attempting to fix her hair. Travis crouched down to Annabel's level. "Hey there, little lady."

"You're funny," Annabel said.

"And you're as pretty as your mama," Travis said, tapping her nose before he stood and turned to Calleigh again. He looked at her car and frowned slightly. "Where's your fella?"

"Travis," Vivian said sternly.

"What?" Travis smiled, but quickly realized there was something wrong when his sister smiled mirthlessly and looked at her daughter.

"Go get the bags from the car, and be careful," Vivian said, pushing him away and leading the girls inside.

"Sorry."

"It's alright, go on," Vivian told him.

"Good to know he hasn't grown up a bit," Calleigh said as they walked into the house, noting very little had changed inside as well, aside from new furniture in the living room. Her mother had an obsession with French styles, unfortunately her lack of exposure towards the culture meant the house mostly contained a series of old pieces that didn't match each other and didn't match the layout of the house.

A big mess of stuffy chairs, antique tables, and French art that was more inappropriate than beautiful. Calleigh hated the décor as a child and still despised it now, but her mother insisted on bringing even more random things every time she left the house, contributing to the eclectic clutter.

"You wanna help me set the table? Travis gave me a beautiful silverware set for Mother's Day. It's from India," Vivian said, scurrying into the dining room quickly.

Calleigh chuckled disbelievingly. "Since when do we set tables?"

"We're human beings, Calleigh. You don't expect us to eat on the floor like a crop of piglets now, do you?" Vivian said.

Annabel chuckled and Calleigh couldn't help but notice her mother seemed to have a new energy about her. She hadn't stopped smiling since Calleigh pulled up, and though in any other human being she'd find no cause for concern for that, it was different when it came to her mother, a woman who'd spent most of her time in another world or merely out in the town, commiserating with other "proper" women of whatever so-called society about worlds they'd never been to and places they'd never see. It almost felt like she was looking at a different woman now, one she barely recognized at that. She figured it was the excitement of seeing her daughter for the first time in four years.

She walked into the kitchen, where she found a few pots over the stove, and smells she would never associate with this house. "Who... cooked?"

"I did," Vivian said proudly, smiling at the food.

Calleigh turned to face her mother and chuckled condescendingly again. "Since when do you cook?"

"I've been taking classes, down at the school," Vivian said, excited. "Oh, it's so much fun, Calleigh. You oughta go with me on Saturday."

Calleigh shook her head. "I know how to cook, mama."

"Oh, it's just for fun," Vivian said. "Besides, this is Southern food, _good_ food. You're all skin and bones, the pair of you, eating that city garbage."

Calleigh merely smiled tightly, resisting the urge to tell her she never seemed to care about the fact that she'd been skin and bones as a kid, too. Vivian set the table all the while chatting about her cooking classes and how much fun they were and how many friends she'd made. Calleigh was too peeved about this version of her mother to pay much attention, and merely washed Annabel's hands and sat her down to eat.

And she was too proud to comment on that fact that the food was actually good, food cooked by her mother who apparently now insisted they ate at the dinner table and actually scolded Travis for setting his elbows on said table. Thankfully Vivian was more interested in Annabel's life and Annabel was more than happy to chat away about her daycare friends and teacher, her 4th birthday party that took place two weeks before. Calleigh took the opportunity to push the food around her plate with her fork, feeling now the exhaustion behind her eyes and the nape of her neck.

Quickly worsened by the realization that she was home. The house still made her feel stifled, cornered, awoken her fight or flight response and suddenly she felt like grabbing her daughter and going home. Her _real_ home in Miami, even with everything that had happened being away from this house still made her feel much better than being in it. There was too much history here, too many reminders of a life she'd fought hard to forget.

"Mooooommy."

She heard Annabel saying and Calleigh quickly came out of her trance and smiled at her daughter. "What?"

"I said, when am I going to school," Annabel asked, her tone a little pressing.

"I told you, you start school in September."

"Oh. September," Annabel informed her grandmother.

Vivian was too busy looking at Calleigh and suddenly she pushed her plate away, giving Travis a telling gesture. Travis sighed and deposited his napkin on his empty plate. "Women talk," he muttered and turned to Annabel. "Hey, little lady, you wanna help me feed Biscuit?"

Calleigh's eyes widened again. "Biscuit's still alive?"

"Oh, honey, Biscuit died five years ago," Vivian explained, clearing the table. "But not before giving birth to Biscuit Jr."

Calleigh shook her head. "You were never good with names, mama."

"Who's Biscuit?" Annabel asked.

"Biscuit's a silly dog we have parked in our backyard," Vivian told her. "You wanna go meet him?"

Annabel gasped and bounced in her chair, looking at her mother. "Can I see the dog?"

Calleigh smiled and hook her head. "Yeah, go ahead. Travis, be careful."

"It's a pup, Cal, not a gator," Travis said, taking his niece away.

Vivian smiled, shaking her head as she sat down. "There isn't an ounce of Jake in that girl, Calleigh," she said. "Are you sure you didn't just clone her?"

Calleigh smiled. Very few things made her feel content these days, save anything related to Annabel. "I'm sure."

Vivian looked at her daughter, letting a moment of silence pass before she spoke softly. "What happened?"

Calleigh looked at her mother, but she was taken aback by Vivian's concerned expression and so she quickly looked down and smiled cynically. "Did something happen?"

"You don't visit me out of the blue, Calleigh. Come to think of it, you don't visit me at all."

"Mama."

"It's alright," Vivian said dismissively. "You have your big life in Miami--"

"You don't need to wait for me to visit you, you know. You could come to Miami," Calleigh said.

Vivian huffed slightly, letting that argument go. She could hardly blame Calleigh for inheriting her own stubbornness. "Does your father know you're here?"

Calleigh shook her head, pressing her lips together. "No."

"Why not?"

She sighed and looked away. "There are a lot of things I don't wanna hear right now, mama. _I told you so_ tops that list."

"Give your father some credit, Calleigh," Vivian said. "He loves you."

"You are defending him?" Calleigh said, a bit shocked. And then she looked into her mother's eyes and realized it was something else entirely. "You agree with him," she said disbelievingly.

"Calleigh—"

"You don't get to have an opinion on my marriage," Calleigh said, feeling her emotions once again getting out of control. "Or my life, for that matter."

"I am not berating you, Calleigh. I'm just concerned," Vivian said emotionally.

"Concerned."

"Yes, concerned," her mother replied with conviction. "I am your mother, I'm allowed to show concern."

Calleigh laughed cynically, raising from her chair and throwing her napkin on the table. "Well, you sure as hell chose a convenient time to start."

Vivian frowned, watching her daughter walk away. She decided to follow her. "I don't understand why you always need to get so defensive, Calleigh. Your father and I--"

Calleigh stopped abruptly and turned around. "I didn't come here to listen to you put yourself on a pedestal, mama. I don't need to hear you say how great and honorable daddy is, a man who doesn't even pick up the phone to talk to his granddaughter."

"Why _did_ you come here?" Vivian asked, her tone both stern and sympathetic at the same time, looking at her daughter expectantly.

Calleigh looked at her, struggling to process the question let alone find an answer. She felt livid and defensive, frustrated and crushed and she didn't know whether to tear her mother to pieces or break down crying. She felt the anger like bile on the back of her throat and the more her mother talked the angrier she became.

Travis opened the front door and Annabel ran into the house with a big smile on her face, grabbing her mother's leg urgently. "Mommy, the doggie licked my hand!"

Calleigh ignored her and grabbed her arm. "Come on, we're going to bed."

Annabel complained. "But Uncle Travis—"

"_Right now_, Annabel," Calleigh said sternly. Annabel looked at her, startled half to tears, before she bit her lip and quietly made her way up the stairs.

Vivian shook her head and walked closer. "Calleigh, don't—"

"Oh, you _certainly_ don't get to give me advice on how to be a good mother," Calleigh said bitterly and disbelievingly.

"Hey!" Travis said loudly, his presence authoritative. "That's enough."

Calleigh looked at him, momentarily wondering when her baby brother had grown into a man, and shaking her head she began to make her way up the stairs.

"I have been driving for 19 hours, mama, I didn't sleep last night and my marriage may have come to an end," she said, feeling angry and out of breath. "So let's cut this short: daddy was right, and apparently so were you. That is more than fine with me. But don't play the concerned mother card now, you don't get to do that this late in the game."

She climbed up the stairs without looking back and Vivian watched her, feeling the tears stinging on the corner of her eyes but she quickly denied Travis's attempts to console her and shaking her head she walked back into the dining room to finish cleaning up.

* * *

After giving Annabel a bath Calleigh walked out to the front porch that night, closing the door slowly behind her. The night was quiet and she instantly missed the noise of the city, the speeding cars and sporadic wailing of ambulances. Hearing nothing but crickets and bullfrogs, she felt lost in the middle of nowhere. 

Calleigh sat on a beaten down porch swing and sighed. There was a firefly flying in circles around the willow tree and she stared at it, and eventually another one joined it, and another one until dozens of them illuminated the night. As a child she spent many hours chasing fireflies, catching them and keeping them in old jars only to release them in her bedroom. Watching them flying above her, illuminating her room, always made her feel calmed, like being worlds away in magical places... She never believed in magic as a child, or Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy or any of the myths, for that matter, but watching fireflies always made her think that maybe, just maybe, all those things could be real.

The illusion was inevitably shattered the morning after, when he'd have to sweep their carcasses off her bedroom floor.

But she still maintained a fondness for the bugs, mainly because they appeared to be the only animals with the ability to fly to different places but chose to remain within the same two or three feet of each other.

Her calm was interrupted by her cell phone's ring tone. Calleigh looked at the name on the screen and hesitated again, biting the inside of her lip and resisting the urge to turn the phone off. But she knew he'd know, and the last thing she wanted was to appear weak in front of anyone.

She flipped the phone open and put it to her ear, but waited a while before she replied. He waited patiently. "Hello?"

"Calleigh."

She smiled faintly. "Hey, Eric."

"Are you okay? H said that--"

"I'm fine," she said, nodded her head though he couldn't see her. "I'm uh, I'm gonna be home for a while."

"I drove by your house, you weren't there."

"I meant Louisiana," she said.

Eric was quiet for a while, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Eric was a worrier, which wasn't something she always appreciated, though sometimes admired. "Are you sure everything's okay, Calleigh? You don't sound--"

"I'm fine, Eric," she said softly. She took a deep breath, feeling like she was teetering on the borders of insanity. Eric remained quiet and she knew he was waiting for her to embellish, but the silence only made her feel more emotional and lost. She took a deep breath but could barely release it, and at that moment realized how much she wished he was standing there to give her strength. The thought made her feel guilty - Eric was the last person she should be getting involved in this, but he'd also been one of her strongest pillars, and at that moment she desperately needed to feel grounded.

"Jake and I..." she started but stopped, not knowing how to continue and even if she did the words refused to leave her mouth.

But Eric seemed to know, even though the silence became a little awkward and tense. He remained quiet for a while, and for once Calleigh didn't know what he was thinking, or at least didn't want to guess. Things were already complicated enough. "I'm sorry, Cal."

"It's okay," she said, forcing herself to believe the words.

He paused for a second, and she knew he was trying to determine if the words she'd spoken were true or not. It didn't seem to matter, anyway.

"How's Annie?" he asked.

"She's fine, she's--I don't think she really understands," Calleigh said, and the prospect of that inevitable conversation with Annabel brought another wave of anger and anxiousness.

"Yeah," Eric said thoughtfully. "Give her a kiss for me, okay?"

Calleigh smiled. "I will."

He let another moment pass, and she wondered if he was at home or at the lab. Eric had become a workaholic in the last few years, more so than her, leaving him little time for a personal life save for the rare moments when Ryan dragged him to a bar. Calleigh watched him from the sidelines, wondering if he would ever be the old Eric again and feeling frustrated and guilty and too many other things she didn't want to acknowledge.

"I'll, uh, I'll let you get back to your family, I just wanted to see if you were okay," he said.

Calleigh nodded. "Thank you."

"Okay. Night, Calleigh."

She opened her mouth to say something, to stop him from hanging up the phone but it quickly hit her that she didn't know what to say. Or maybe didn't know how to verbalize it. She felt the words and the emotions tight in her chest and she feared releasing just one would open up a whole dam and she didn't want to be that woman, she didn't want to be needy and pathetic. She didn't want to cry and make him think she wasn't handling this well.

So she quickly looked down and smiled at herself. "Night, Eric."

He hung up and she flipped her cell phone close, instantly missing her one connection to Miami. The night was a little chilly and at the thought her skin instantly filled with goosebumps, so taking one deep breath she stood up, looking at the fireflies one more time before she went inside the house.

Her mother's room was dark and she could hear soft music coming out of Travis's, but she ignored that and headed towards her old bedroom. She walked in quietly and looked around, sighing at the fact that her mother had opted for leaving it just the way Calleigh left it. Pink wallpaper with green little flowers, covered by posters of Blondie, Tiffany, Emilio Estevez... All reminders of her chaotic teenaged years.

Annabel lay in her old twin bed, holding on to her doll and her eyes still opened. Calleigh frowned slightly. Walking over with a smile she sat on the corner of her bed.

"What are you still doing up?"

"Who is that man?" Annabel said, pointing at the picture of Emilio Estevez.

Calleigh chuckled. "That was the first man that ever broke your mama's heart."

"How did he do that?" Annabel asked with wonderment.

Calleigh smiled. "It doesn't matter anymore."

Annabel didn't understand the concept of heartbreaks beyond the literal meaning of the word, which conjured up an image of this Emilio Estevez man breaking a heart made out of construction paper in two. It must've been a really nice heart with glitter and plastic jewelry that her mother had made. Being such a lover of art, and of her mother, Annabel decided then she didn't like this Emilio Estevez.

She looked at her mother for a long time, and though Calleigh was smiling she looked tired and not as perfect as she'd always looked. Annabel put her hand on Calleigh's leg. "Are you sad?"

Calleigh quickly frowned. "Who said anything about me being sad?"

Annabel pursed her lips aside and spoke reluctantly. "Daddy was yelling."

Calleigh's smile soured and she concentrated on Annabel's doll as she nodded. "Yeah, he was."

"Is he mad at us?" Annabel said a bit sadly and confused.

Calleigh sighed and forced a smile, putting her hand on her daugther's stomach affectionately. "No, baby, daddy's--" she stopped, struggling with the words because at barely four Annabel had no concept of marriage or separation, or friendly or not-so-friendly fights. And she certainly wouldn't understand the reason why Jake had left, when Calleigh barely understood them herself.

So she shook her head and tried to appear positive. "Daddy could never be mad at you, okay? He loves you very much. You know that, right?" Annabel nodded and Calleigh smiled. "And you don't have to worry about those things, okay? That's for mommies and daddies to do."

"Okay," Annabel said.

"Alright?" Calleigh smiled and stood up, tightly wrapping her in the pink sheets that seemed to have been there since Calleigh was born. "There you go, snug as a bug in a rug."

Annabel laughed and for that Calleigh was glad, and seeing her daughter happy immediately made her feel much better. She gave her a quick peck on the lips and Annabel hugged her neck.

"Night, baby," Calleigh said, and when Annabel presented her with her doll Calleigh smiled, grabbed it and gave it a kiss, too. "Night, Molly."

She left the door to the room partly open and made her way down the hall and into her brother John Mark's room. This room was still untouched as well, she noticed, quickly shaking her head at the posters of all the 70s rock bands that decorated the walls. Her brother John was always a rebel, rejected anything Southern (especially the music) and didn't wait to turn 17 before he packed his bags, dropped the Mark off his name, and headed to the north. Calleigh didn't hear much from him, save for the occasional e-mail and Christmas cards. But she knew, or at least hoped, that he was doing fine.

She sat on his bed, sighing loudly and letting her head drop backwards. Her shoulders ached and her head pounded slightly, and laying back onto the bed she hoped sleep would come quickly. But minutes passed and she lay there, starring at the ceiling. She spent many hours in this room, she remembered quickly, taking care of Johnny, convincing him there weren't any monsters in his closet or under his bed, or simply laying in bed with him until he fell asleep.

She looked at his closet, where he always hid when their father came home drunk until Calleigh walked in and joined him in there to try to convince him everything would be okay. Johnny was more emotional than Calleigh had been, and so she wasn't surprised to hear he'd left the house merely days after she'd gone off to college. She never blamed him for that, or for never calling home. She figured they all had their coping mechanisms.

Hers just happened to be a tad more masochistic, she thought as she remembered the events of the night. But fearing a migraine she tried to put them out of her mind, because it certainly wasn't going to destroy her now if it didn't when she'd been a child.

She lay on her side, and the moonlight quickly caught the gold band on her finger and she looked at it, and as she moved her hand the diamond cast off a few colorful sparkles. She used her thumb to play with the band, wondering whether she should take it off or leave it, wondering whether this would blow over in a few days or it really was the end. She knew the answer on the back of her mind, but her head was so cluttered, so many unorganized thoughts, she couldn't reach for it if she tried. She felt the distinctive prickle of a few brave tears in her eyes, but blinking quickly she made sure they never fell.

Taking a deep breath, Calleigh buried her hand under the pillow, leaving the ring on, and turning on her side she waited for sleep to come.

_to be continued_


	4. Chapter 4

When It Falls: Chapter 4  
by Skylar

She woke up to birds chirping.

Not the sound of Jake snoring, or Jake showering, or Jake shaving, or even by his absence from their bed. It hit her quickly that she hadn't been woken up by birds singing in years, and instantly she remembered everything: the fight, the road trip, coming home...

She felt tired still, her body sore from hours of driving and lack of sleep. She stretched in John's old bed and ran her hands through her face, wondering for the first time what she would do now. She could go back to Miami, face Jake, come to some sort of understanding, perhaps finally surrender herself to the idea of couple's therapy, if it meant getting her sense of control back, if it meant she would be able to attain a little normalcy (as alien as the concept had always been).

Or she could stay in Louisiana a while longer, with her mother, in her old home and reminders of her past and the smell of bad history. Neither option seemed appealing and she wondered what would've happened if she'd continued driving. But she knew then that had never been an option, even when it had been her intention. It was her life. From being a child, to a teenager, to an adult, she simply never had enough room to take off, enough strength to leave it all behind. Didn't have the courage. She was anchored to her life and she knew and accepted it. Didn't mean it was always easy, floating slowly in small circles, living in fear of facing a storm on her own.

The door opened slowly and she looked up, smiling when she saw her daughter standing there curiously and cautiously. She wondered how much longer she could go pretending to smile genuinely for Annabel.

"Hey, isn't it a little early for you to be creeping about?" she said in good humor.

Annabel ran over and jumped into bed quickly, crawling under the comforter and nestling herself in Calleigh's chest, her doll safely cradled in her arms.

Calleigh kissed the top of her head and held her close, and as safe as Annabel probably felt in Calleigh's arms, Calleigh sometimes found these little moments with Annabel were all she had to keep her anchored. "Did you sleep well?"

"Uncle Travis was singing in the bathroom," Annabel snickered.

Calleigh smiled. "He's bad, isn't he?"

"Yeah."

She chuckled and rolled on her back, reaching for her watch in the night stand, and when she realized it was 10:44 in the morning, rather than 6 o'clock which was when she usually woke up, she bolted from bed, prompting her daughter to give her a strange look.

"How long have you been up?" she exclaimed, quickly putting on her slippers.

"Since the morning," Annabel said, playing with her doll's yarn hair. "The chickens were too loud."

"God," Calleigh said, running her hands through her face. The roosters usually started singing around six in the morning, meaning her daughter had been up, unsupervised, for nearly five hours. The thought made her feel horribly guilty, as Annabel had never been left to her own devices, ever, let alone in a strange house and with no food.

"Gosh, baby, I'm so sorry," she said, sitting down, kissing the top of her head and transferring her onto her lap. "Are you hungry? What do you want for breakfast?"

"I _had_ breakfast," Annabel told her.

Calleigh frowned. "You did?"

Annabel nodded. "Grandma made gits."

"Grits?" Calleigh corrected her.

"Yeah. I ate them."

"You _hate_ grits," Calleigh told her. "I made them for you last year and you spit them out, remember?"

"Grandma makes good grits."

Calleigh sighed and forced a smile. "I'm sure she does."

Of course, she hadn't thought of the fact that in a few minutes she would have to go downstairs and face her mother. The thought alone made her want to crawl back into the covers and sleep the rest of the day away, or at least use the sheets as a rope and escape with Annabel out the window.

And since when did her mother make breakfast? Since when did her mother wake up at a reasonable hour, even?

She found herself inexplicably angry. This whole thing with her mother, in a way she was glad Vivian had finally stopped living in a bubble, but an irrational part of her felt resentful, that this change came so late in the game. She felt angry that her mother had had a reason to change when Calleigh was a child and didn't, and now that it didn't matter anymore suddenly she'd turned into a three dimensional image of Paula Dean. Too much too late. She wanted to applaud her mother's efforts, but thirty years of repressed anger and resentment would not let her.

"Is daddy coming today?" Annabel said suddenly, looking up quickly before her attention was grabbed by her doll's hair again.

Calleigh looked at her and her heart quickly sank, and though Annabel just sat there, seemingly without giving her question a second thought, Calleigh knew she had to be careful when it came to talking about Jake in front of Annabel. As disastrous as her marriage to Jake had been lately, he'd always loved Annabel infinitively, and she didn't want her daughter to develop the same resentment she'd always had for her own father.

So she smiled warmly. "No, honey. Daddy's back home and we might stay here a while."

"Oh," Annabel said, looking around as if processing the answer. When her mind deemed it satisfactory she looked at her mother earnestly. "Can I go play with Biscuit?"

Calleigh smiled. "Go get dressed and we'll see."

Annabel scurried out of the room and Calleigh sighed, pushing her hair back and scratching the nape of her neck. She looked around for a change of clothes, her body screaming for coffee, and after brushing her teeth she found her mother sitting by the table in the kitchen, reading the newspaper. Calleigh hesitated for just a moment before the irrational anger resurfaced and she walked in quickly.

"Why didn't you wake me?"

Vivian looked up, seizing her daughter up, but Calleigh quickly busied herself by trying to find the percolator. Vivian shook her head. "Good morning."

Calleigh looked at her and quickly looked away. She'd always hated when her mother did this. "Morning."

"You said last night that you were tired," Vivian said passive aggressively.

"I needed to cook breakfast for Annabel," Calleigh said, fruitlessly opening and closing cabinets.

"I made breakfast," Vivian said. "There's still some by the stove, if you're hungry."

"I'm okay," Calleigh muttered. "Just need some coffee."

"Still skipping breakfast," Vivian noted. "It's not good for your health, Calleigh. It's the most important meal of the day, you know."

"That's never been scientifically proven," Calleigh said.

"At least have some toast or something, you're gonna need your energy now."

Calleigh stopped and looked at her. "What is that supposed to mean?" she said rather abruptly, but quickly sighed and shook her head dismissively, her attention back on finding the damn appliance.

Vivian watched her for a moment, knowing her daughter well. She felt an immense yearning at that moment that things could be different between them, but she knew that was a very steep, uphill battle. "I know you're angry at me, Calleigh."

"I'm not angry, mama," Calleigh said without looking at her.

"And a big fat liar," Vivian added, returning her attention to the newspaper. "Coffee maker's on the counter."

Calleigh looked at the machine, and it looked alien there. Her mother had never been a big fan of modern appliances, always preferred to use the antiques because they made her feel important and sophisticated, probably reminded her of a time in her life when she could call herself that. Calleigh wondered if her mother even knew how to use a coffee machine, but she tried to put it out of her mind as she loaded it with coffee.

And unfortunately the thing took forever to brew, leaving her to stand there in the presence of her mother who, apparently, had also taken to reading the newspaper. She felt awkward and tense, smaller and smaller with each minute that passed by. Her mother sat there, seemingly unaware of her daughter's presence, but Vivian Duquesne had always been good at something and that was drifting away from the world around her.

Sighing quietly, Calleigh made her way over and sat by the table. There was a basket of green apples in the middle of it and she eyed them as she reluctantly said, "I'm sorry, about last night."

Vivian looked up, watching her daughter for a few seconds. The coffee machine began to gurgle and the aroma of the beans filled the kitchen, and she took her reading glasses off and put the newspaper down. "I've been there, Calleigh."

Calleigh quickly frowned and shook her head to stop her. "Mama—"

"But you have a family that loves you and supports you, and you don't have to go through this alone," Vivian said compassionately.

Calleigh said nothing, but stood up and went over to attend to the coffee. She poured herself a cup and held it in her hands, watching the dark liquid as it steamed. Her mother didn't say anything else and Calleigh took a deep breath, turned around and looked at the floor.

"It's not the first time," she said reluctantly, and though her mother was the last person in the world she wanted to share this with, she couldn't stop the words from coming out of her mouth. Maybe she just needed some reassurance, from her or from herself, she didn't know. "Last year he was gone for a week, we told Annabel he was on a trip."

Vivian looked at her a tad pitifully, her head cocked to the side. "Honey—"

"It's gonna be okay," Calleigh said quickly, taking a deep breath to control her emotions. And when that worked she smiled slightly. "We both just need some time to think."

Vivian nodded, and while there were a hundred things she wanted to tell Calleigh, about her own experiences, she knew her daughter too well to realize her words would go unheard. She'd been there before, wasn't a stranger to a time when she, too, would delude herself into thinking things with Duke would change for the better. All they needed was time. He could change. He would change. But time couldn't sew together the emotional tears between them, and the marriage slowly came to a painful end.

She didn't know Jake as well, but she was familiar with the routine. She wanted her daughter to be happy, more than anything else, but she also knew she couldn't open Calleigh's eyes. That, Calleigh would have to do on her own.

So she returned the uncertain smile and let the topic fade away for the time being. "You still eat lunch, at least?"

Calleigh looked at her and nodded, her cup of coffee still untouched.

"Good," Vivian said, standing up. "You can make yourself useful and go to the store. I need a chicken, some beans, water chestnuts, and pimentos."

Calleigh frowned as her mother reached for a cup inside a random cabinet and produced from it a few twenty dollar bills. She handed them to Calleigh, who eyed them reluctantly. "You need a whole chicken?"

"Well, I would kill one of our own, but I don't wanna do that with Annabel in the house. Poor thing would get spooked, start thinkin' her grandma's a witch."

There were a lot of things Calleigh wanted to say. Mainly, what in the hell was her mother doing killing chickens? The woman strongly despised any animal that wasn't a dog or a cat. One time her father tried to bring over a couple of cows, trying to save money on milk and cheese, and the woman went on a three day rampage about how she wasn't going to go to bed every night with a man who stank of manure, and she certainly didn't want anyone in town thinking they were just a family of poor farmers.

Now, not only did her mother acquire chickens, apparently she also killed them and cooked them, too. Every minute that went by, the woman in front of her seemed more and more like a stranger.

Still not touching the money, Calleigh looked at her. "Couldn't you just call the store?"

"Of course I could call the store," Vivian said, grabbing Calleigh's hand and placing the money in it. "But I want you to go. It'll be good for you, Calleigh, you might even see some of your old friends."

Calleigh sighed. The thought hadn't occurred to her, running into people she hadn't even thought about in 20 years. The thought made her feel uneasy. Not that she'd had many friends, anyway. Most girls thought she was too weird because she liked playing rough. Most guys were too busy trying to get into her pants to notice anything else. But it was such a small town, she was bound to run into someone who would undoubtedly start asking questions, and the last thing she wanted right now was to talk about herself.

"Well, go on," Vivian exclaimed. "I need to get lunch started."

Unwillingly, Calleigh put her cup of coffee down. Annabel came running down, excited about playing with Biscuit, but Calleigh burst her bubble quickly and dragged her outside.

She was reluctant to admit her mother was right, but the walk was actually pretty good. It was a beautiful day, sun shining bright and hundreds of birds singing. She hadn't been to the country in so long, she'd forgotten how relaxed it was living there, how much slower time moved, how much gentler the breeze was. The air smelled clean, pure, and she didn't have to worry about getting run over by an overzealous driver. Quickly she released her daughter's hand and Annabel ran a few feet in front of her, amazed by the birds and the trees and the huge chunks of barren land. Despite everything that happened here Calleigh couldn't help feeling good that Annabel liked the town. Regardless of what went on in her home, she'd always loved the country life and that feeling of pure freedom and euphoria that came with having a never-ending stretch of green mountains and hills in front of you.

They got to town quickly, and she felt more than a few pairs of eyes on her. It made her feel uneasy, but she took a deep breath and smiled. The first one to recognize her was Mr. Barnes, a small ancient man who spent most of his time sitting in a chair outside the barber shop, reading the newspaper and eying everyone who walked by, the same way he did 20 years ago. Calleigh felt genuine happiness to see him again after all these years, and though he was looking run down and tired, that spark of life still remained in his eyes as he gave her a kiss and a hug and made Annabel laugh with his thick Southern vernacular.

Mrs. Nixon still worked at the Darnell Travel Agency. She still wore her padded shoes that helped her better carry her weight, and her office was still decorated with the same posters of Greece, Argentina, and Japan from 20 years ago. Calleigh doubted the woman had been able to sell many tickets since she left, but she had been able to make ends meet, somehow.

Quickly she realized that a part of her missed this. Walking down the street and recognizing all the faces, stopping along the way to talk to people who tell the same stories and the same jokes over and over again. She enjoyed life in Miami, still considered it her home, but there was something about Darnell that made her wish things had turned out much differently.

"Well, well, well, who do we have here?"

Of course she could recognize that voice any time, any place, no matter how many years, centuries, passed. Smiling yet acting annoyed, she turned and faced Billy Duggan, and was quickly taken aback by his looks - he'd managed to go from a lanky, awkward teenage boy to a handsome, strong man, and he still wore those beat up jeans and boots. Very little changes around here, she remembered quickly.

"Calleigh Duquesne, aren't you a sight for sore eyes," he said.

Calleigh smiled as he approached her, and so many memories rushed into her so quickly, she was momentarily thrown off. "I thought you'd fallen off the face of the earth."

"Me?" Billy exclaimed with a chuckle. "I've been sittin' right here the whole time, big time city girl," he added. Smiling brightly, he took the few remaining steps towards her and hugged her tight.

Calleigh tensed briefly in his arms, not knowing why.

Billy represented a time in her life she didn't want to think about, but when her home life had been tumultuous, too much to bear, when the weight of it all became too heavy to carry on her own, Billy had always been there to share the load with her. She never told him what went on at home, she never shared that with anyone, but he had a talent for showing up at her window during the most opportune moments. Together they'd sneak down to the lake or wherever, just sit there alone, sometimes talking, most often not.

She never told him much, and though he still suspected her never asked. He was a good distraction, a good companion, and that had always brought her a great amount of comfort.

"Good to see you, too," she said genuinely, pulling back and looking at him, taking him in. There were a few lines of definition on his face, but for the most part he was still the vivacious and good natured boy he'd been when she last saw him.

He looked down, quickly raising his eyebrows and grinning wide. "Well look at that, you went and got yourself a little critter."

Annabel looked up and unhappily crossed her arms in front of her, standing between her mother and the strange man; she sneered slightly at him.

But Billy merely chuckled and ruffled the top of her head. "Temper like her mama's, too."

"This is Annabel," Calleigh said, "Annabel, this is my old friend Billy."

"Nice to meet you, Annabel," Billy said, bowing slightly in front of her.

Calleigh smiled, but Annabel quickly looked up at her and tugged on her hand. "Mommy, we have to go to the store."

She looked down, both amused and annoyed by her daughter's exasperation. "Why don't you go wait for me right over there."

Annabel looked at the spot, and though in front of the store there was a very inviting mechanical horsie, she turned to her mother and whined. "No."

"I'll be right there, I promise," Calleigh said, and Annabel sighed unhappily and walked away, looking back the whole time.

"Nice to meet you, Annabel," Billy called after her, and she furrowed her eyebrows at him and continued her reluctant journey.

Billy chuckled and turned to Calleigh. "She looks like you," he noted. "Bad news, huh?"

Calleigh quickly mocked shock. "Are you calling me a troublemaker?"

He shook his head. "Not many girls could get a guy to strip naked and jump into the lake behind the Watson's in the middle of the night."

She laughed at the memory, blushing slightly. "Hey, I didn't hold a gun to your head."

Billy frowned comically. "I'm pretty sure you did."

"Well, it's not like it was loaded," Calleigh said.

He smiled fondly. "So how are you doing? Married with kids, never thought I'd see the day."

"Yeah," Calleigh said, looking down, her arms crossed in front of her. She felt exposed and vulnerable, though she'd known the question was coming, and suddenly the ring around her finger felt tight and heavy. Smiling, she did what she did best and reflected the attention off of her. "What about you?"

"Married, two boys, one along the way," Billy said proudly.

"Two boys, goodness!" Calleigh said. "I thought one girl was too much."

"Well, my boys don't have the terrorizing Duquesne genes," Billy joked. "Elliott's 5 and Matthew's 7. Wife's hoping for a girl. Me, I wouldn't mind having another pair of hands to help around the farm."

Calleigh smiled nostalgically. "Your dad's farm."

"He passed away two years ago," Billy said regrettably.

"I'm sorry," Calleigh said genuinely.

"Yeah," he said thoughtfully, "left me the whole thing - cows, horses, pigs, chicks - you should stop by this weekend, if you're still around."

"Oh," Calleigh shook her head quickly. "It's okay."

"Really," he said. "Martha's in Ohio visiting her mother, took the boys with her. It'd be nice to catch up."

"I don't know," Calleigh said reluctantly, looking down.

Billy chuckled. "What, you think I'm gonna put the moves on you?"

Calleigh gave him a comical look. "Now, I know you value your life too much."

"Oh, I do," Billy laughed. "Well, it's up to you."

"Thank you," Calleigh said.

"You know where I live," he said and began to walk in the direction he came from. "Just in case."

Calleigh rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I'll see you around."

"Hey," Billy called out to her and she turned around. He winked when she did. "You look good."

"Thank you," Calleigh said, feeling all of 14-years-old again. "You too."

He grinned and walked away, and she couldn't help smiling fondly at some of their best memories, even though they were forever intertwined with some of the bad ones. Billy was still her oldest friend in the world, the first person she ever trusted, and she hadn't realized until that moment how much she'd missed him.

She approached the mechanical horse in front of the store and Annabel sat on it, her little arms crossed across her chest and looking unhappy.

"You want a ride?" Calleigh asked her, searching into her pockets for a quarter.

But Annabel ignored her and watched Billy go, frowning. "That man called me a critter."

Calleigh smiled. "I know."

"I'm not a critter, I'm a girl."

"He was just trying to be funny," Calleigh explained. Annabel didn't seem to hear her, she merely sat there pouting, and if it weren't for the blond hair and the green eyes Calleigh could've sworn she was looking at a mini Jake - the frown and the anger, and the way she crossed her arms, her eyebrows...

For the most part Annabel was nice and well behaved, but every once in a while a little bit of Jake would filter through and Calleigh found herself dealing temper tantrums. She tried every day to teach her daughter patience, to be nice and not judge people, to not let her emotions get in the way of life, but it was in Annabel's genes, and when Annabel decided she didn't like something - or someone - there was very little Calleigh could do to change her mind. She'd never been one to throw herself on the floor and scream until she passed out, but rather opted for sitting in a corner with her arms crossed and that frown on her face that Calleigh saw in Jake so often.

It scared her sometimes, how something so seemingly insignificant could be passed down from chromosome to chromosome. It scared her to think that Annabel might learn some of _her_ bad quirks, too.

Calleigh knelt down next to the horse. "Hey, I don't want you to be rude to people, okay?" she said sternly. "It's not nice."

Annabel finally looked at her. "I don't like him," she said stubbornly.

Calleigh sighed and looked down, her daughter's words eliciting a bad sensation.

_"I don't like him."_

_"He's my friend, Jake."_

_"Not mine."_

She looked at her daughter a while longer, and Annabel sat there looking away, frowning and unhappy. "Come on, let's go in," she said, but Annabel didn't move. Calleigh waited a few more seconds and added sternly. "Annabel."

Upon hearing her mother's strict warning Annabel's eyes filled with stubborn tears and she didn't move. Her bottom lip stuck way out in a pout but she frowned harder and refused to cry.

"Come on," Calleigh coaxed her again, and after sniffing slightly and wiping her eyes, Annabel finally grabbed her mother's hand and followed her inside.

---

On their way back to the house, Calleigh noted Annabel's energy was fading (which was a rare occurrence, much to Calleigh's dismay). She walked a few feet behind Calleigh, struggling with a bag of beans. Calleigh briefly looked at her out of the corner of her eye and smiled. "I think someone may have replaced my daughter with a turtle."

Annabel said nothing but let out a lone, whiny cry. Calleigh stopped and turned around. "Come on, grandma's waiting."

But Annabel walked up to her mother, put the bag of beans down on the ground and raised her arms out to Calleigh.

"I'm not gonna carry you, you're not a baby anymore," Calleigh exclaimed.

But Annabel whined again, urgently reaching out for her mother.

"Tell you what," Calleigh said, "you can stay here, and I'll go back to town and get my friend Billy, I'm sure he wouldn't mind helping us."

Quickly Annabel put her arms down and picked up the bag of beans. Without saying anything she began to walk faster. Calleigh chuckled to herself and followed her, and upon arriving back at the house she noticed the front door was open. Annabel went straight in, eager to finally put the bag of beans down, but Calleigh walked around the side, and upon finally having a full view of the back of the house she frowned.

Too many things had changed. The old abandoned stable was now repainted, the tiny formerly abandoned pond full of ducks. There were chickens roaming around, and the new Biscuit lay under the shade of a tree, watching them with little interest (she couldn't help thinking the old Biscuit would've killed all those chickens in less than a minute). Twenty years before, the place was a mess, abandoned, tall grass threatening to eat the old stable, but now everything was clean and full of life.

None of this caught her attention, however. What did was the sight of her mother by the stables, talking to a strange man. Calleigh narrowed her eyes, but still couldn't recognize him. Certainly no one who'd lived around while she was growing up. He said something and Vivian laughed heartily, and it hit her at that moment that she couldn't remember a time when she'd heard her mother laugh. Sure she'd seen her smile, she'd seen her in various degrees of good humor, but never laugh, and the thought brought along all sorts of strange and familiar feelings she tried to bury down with all the others.

They began to walk over and Calleigh quickly hurried back into the house unnoticed and left the grocery bags on the kitchen floor. Annabel eagerly requested to go play with Biscuit again, but Calleigh made up an excuse about helping her grandmother with lunch and retrieved herself upstairs for a shower.

She didn't think much about the man, she decided, or at least tried not to. Maybe a neighbor or an old friend. Maybe a new friend. She tried not to let it bother her, but it did, and so did the sudden realization that the 18 years she'd lived in this house, she'd never once met the real Vivian Duquesne.

---

The shower did very little to alleviate her mental state, but Calleigh appreciated the slight distraction. From upstairs, she could smell whatever culinary experiment her mother was working on, and she found herself anticipating the food. She barely touched her dinner the night before, and a few gummy bears here and there hadn't provided her with the proper energy she'd needed for the trip. Still apprehensive about her mother's cooking, her stomach growled nonetheless and she made her way downstairs.

Vivian was setting the dinner table again, and Calleigh thought she'd never get used to that sight. She intended to go in the kitchen to get the glasses, when she heard the distinctive giggling of her daughter. Calleigh turned around and Annabel was walking in circles around the dinner table, Calleigh's cell phone pressed to her ear and chatting away.

"...there was a raccoon, and a squirrel, and Biscuit was chasing the squirrel and it jumped in the tree and there was a hole in the tree and it crawled inside! And there was another squirrel in the hole and they had a tea party—"

Calleigh frowned. "Annabel, who are you talking to?"

Annabel stopped and looked at her mother. "Eric."

"What?" Calleigh exclaimed and sighed, reaching for the phone. She checked the screen and noticed the call had been going on for more than 15 minutes. "Oh my God," she mumbled and put the phone to her ear. "Eric?"

"Hey," he chuckled.

"I am so sorry," she said quickly, directing Annabel to a chair and Vivian put an empty plate in front of her. "I didn't know she had the phone."

"It's okay; I'm on my lunch break," Eric said dismissively.

"She must've hit speed dial by accident. You should've hung up."

"Hey, how could I miss the dramatic love story between the squirrel and the raccoon? I've seen Spanish soap operas with plots less intricate than that one," he said and Calleigh smiled. "And I called you, actually."

"Oh," Calleigh said, looking towards the table, where her mother was setting the silverware, pretending not to eavesdrop but failing miserably. Calleigh quickly walked into the living room, closing the door behind her.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm okay," she said quickly, knowing that even if she wanted to tell him everything that was going on and she was feeling, she wouldn't be able to find the parade of infinite words. So she smiled tightly and sat in an old chair. "It's a little... insane here."

Eric smiled. "Yeah?"

"I always thought I only left this place because of my parents marriage and school but no, there are other reasons, too."

"Crazy jug blowing cowboys? Come on, Calleigh, who doesn't love that?"

"No," Calleigh chuckled and shook her head. "Only my mother trying to feed me every five seconds. She cooks now, by the way. Can you believe it?" she said, sounding only a tad more frustrated than she'd intended, feeling the resentment lodged in her throat.

"That's good."

She didn't know how to react to his reply. He sounded like her mother's change should be a good thing, but she found her complex feelings on the matter didn't allow her to see it his way. So she shook her head and quickly changed the subject. "How's, um, how's the Torres case?"

"Closed," Eric explained. "The wife folded like cheap laundry."

Calleigh's eyebrows shot up and quickly she forgot about her personal life. "The wife, really?"

"Yeah, well I wasn't kidding about the laundry part, apparently she found a strange DNA contribution in his pants, didn't react too well, found his gun — the rest is pretty self-explanatory."

"Oh," Calleigh said and frowned, and at his revelation there was a brief pause that quickly turned tense and awkward. She struggled with herself, trying to find a way to change the topic yet again and find something of relevance to talk about, but a whirlwind of thoughts, memories and emotions left her suddenly mute, and after a few seconds she could tell he was thinking the same thing she was. This revelation made her shake her head and come out of her reverie and she forced herself to smile.

"I'll, um, I'll let you get back to work," she finally said.

"Yeah," Eric said, hesitating for a moment before adding, "I—_we_ all miss you."

She smiled, and thought she caught the meaning behind his words she decided to put it out of her mind and play dumb. "I miss you guys, too. I'll be back before you know it."

"Okay. Oh, and Calleigh?"

She stopped, her smile fading and feeling hesitant. "Yeah?"

Eric waited a moment before he continued. "Who the hell is Biscuit?"

Calleigh chuckled, shaking her head and feeling relief. "I'll explain later."

"Alright, I'll talk to you later."

"Bye, Eric."

She hung up the phone and smiled at nothing, and had to talk herself back into a fowl mood before she walked back into the dining room, where the food was already served and her mother and daughter were giggling at God knows what.

Calleigh approached the table with her hands on her hips. "Annabel, how many times have I told you not to play with my cell phone?"

"Oh, it's not her fault," Vivian said quickly.

Calleigh looked at her. "Mama—"

"Don't scold her for that, Calleigh, your phone began to ring and she just answered it. No need to make a fuss about it."

Calleigh sighed and turned to Annabel again. "You know you're not allowed to touch this, okay? If you hear it ringing, you come get me."

Annabel bit her lip timidly. "Okay."

Calleigh sat down, and the three women ate in silence until her mother slowly guided a piece of chicken into her mouth and asked, "Who's Eric?"

Calleigh shook her head quickly. "No one, just, a colleague from work."

"He has a boat," Annabel said enthusiastically.

"No he doesn't have a boat," Calleigh corrected her. "He rents one sometimes."

"And he took me to the boat in the ocean and there was a dolphin and I threw a fish at the dolphin and it ate it!" Annabel continued.

"Really," Vivian said, though her tone indicated she was less interested in Annabel's story and more curious about something else.

Calleigh looked at her, and the brief eye contact caused her to look down at her food. She grabbed her fork and began to play with it, feeling her mother's eyes on her and suddenly she felt a wave of anger wash over her again.

"And he's my dolphin and I named him Diego and Eric takes care of it," Annabel continued happily.

"Well," Vivian said, taking a deep breath and smiling at her granddaughter. "I didn't know your daddy likes boats."

"Daddy doesn't go in the boat cause he's working," Annabel said.

"Annabel, that's _enough_," Calleigh said sternly.

Vivian looked at her, a little surprised by her reaction. "She's just telling me about her friend, Calleigh."

"If you wanna know anything about my life or my friends you could call every once in a while," Calleigh said quickly, her words out of her mouth like bile, and she knew it was a low blow, but she was desperate to re-direct the attention off of her and it was the first thing that came to mind.

Vivian looked at her and merely nodded slightly. "You're right."

Calleigh sighed and looked down, feeling guilty again and too many things at once. Once more she felt like getting in the car and driving far away, running away from everyone and starting anew somewhere else, where nobody knew her and nobody incited so many emotions.

"That works both ways, by the way," Vivian added passive aggressively and took another bite of her food.

Calleigh looked at her, feeling the sting of her words. She knew how long this blame game could go for - days if they didn't have to sleep. She wasn't in the mood either, not with the shadow of Jake looming over her and being out of her element in her own home, where too many bad memories had her walking on eggshells. So she let it go and looked at her daughter, who thankfully was too busy playing with the pepper shaker to pay any attention to what was going on.

"Who was that man," Calleigh said finally. "In the back with you, I saw you earlier."

"His name is Clark Waller, he just moved here," Vivian said casually.

Calleigh narrowed her eyes. "Nobody moves to Darnell."

"Clark Waller does," Vivian said and continued enjoying her food.

Calleigh looked at her expectantly, hoping for more detail. "And he's just... getting to know his neighbors?"

Vivian took a sip of her sweet tea and cocked her head to the side coyly. "Yes."

There was a little something in her tone that made Calleigh shake her head. She'd never heard her mother laugh, and she'd never seen her act like this, either. Hell, of her old mother very little remained, not the attitude and very little of her personality.

But she didn't press the matter and instead continued eating, realizing finally that the one thing the Duquesne were good at was having secrets.

---

Calleigh couldn't imagine how her mother entertained herself when she was gone. Without any close neighbors and no children to take care of (not that she ever did much when there had been) it seemed to Calleigh that life could get painfully boring fairly quickly.

Which is how she found herself that afternoon, sitting in the living room and reading an old book that turned uninteresting fairly quickly. She finally let Annabel go out and play with the damn dog, and Annabel entertained herself all afternoon with Biscuit, chasing ducks and chickens and getting herself all _dirty_ and it drove Calleigh crazy but Vivian thought it did Annabel good to run around.

Travis came over for lunch but left for work quickly, leaving Calleigh to wonder when her little brother had turned into the epitome of responsibility that he worked so many hours. She supposed workaholics and maniacs ran amock in her family.

At 6 o'clock Vivian finally settled on the couch to watch the evening news, but this made Calleigh feel even more restless. Crime after crime and she was too far away to do anything about it, and quickly she began to miss the lab, work, her gun vault and the shooting range, her guns. She missed feeling important, missed doing something for victims and their families. She wondered why it'd occurred to her to drive home when work had always helped her clear her mind, but the lab was still too close, too close to everything that threatened to crumble her emotional walls, and at the moment she still felt the inexplicable need to stay away.

Thankfully the sports commentators finally took over. In the middle of the broadcast her cell phone began to ring and Calleigh reached for it. She looked at the screen, and her heart did a jump, causing her to take a deep breath. She looked up and her mother was looking at her, and without saying a word she seemed to understand and stood up.

"Come on, honey, let's go make sure Biscuit finished his food," Vivian told Annabel, who eagerly followed her outside.

Calleigh stood up, taking a deep breath and trying to collect herself as the phone continued to ring. When she couldn't take it anymore she finally answered, all the while reminding herself to remain calmed, in control. She needed that more than she needed air to breathe.

"Hello."

"Where are you?"

Jake didn't sound pissed, she realized quickly. He didn't sound like anything she'd heard him sound before, and this scared her. "I'm at my mom's."

"What? In Louisiana?"

"Yes," she replied.

"You didn't think to ask before you took our daughter away to another state?" he said, and she did recognize that tone — bitterness, frustration and anger.

It made her reach out for those feelings as well, and she didn't hesitate before answering. "No."

He sighed, and there was a moment of silence on the line. Calleigh could see him now, with the phone pressed to his ear and raking his hands through his hair, walking in circles and looking down. He was too predictable, and the years had never been able to do away with his basic quirks.

The moment stretched, and she finally took a deep breath, "I'll be back—"

"I talked to a lawyer," he said quickly, interrupting her, and Calleigh's heart sank, even though she told herself quickly to remain in control, because she didn't want to appear weak or give him the impression that he caught her off guard. She didn't want him to think he was one step ahead, that he was breaking her, but the revelation knocked her off her feet before she tried to recover.

"That was quick," she said coldly and bitterly, swallowing hard.

"Calleigh, I, uh," Jake began, and he hesitated a moment before he sighed. "I really don't wanna do this over the phone, do you?"

Thousands of answers ran through her head. Thousands of things she wanted to tell him, ask him, demand of him — but she quickly realized that's what her marriage had become, a prolonged moment of silence, one-sided conversations that ended too quickly. She wanted to fight, and yet at the same time she wanted to let go, and this caused a tornado of emotions inside of her that she fought every minute to bury deep down.

"I just, I miss Annabel and I—I wanted to know if you were okay," he continued when she didn't answer.

"I'm okay," she said stoically.

"Okay," Jake said, and another moment passed before he added, "can I talk to her?"

Calleigh hesitated a moment. Annabel hadn't even neared the periphery of her thoughts and now she was stuck wondering what she would say to her. That her mother and father were parting ways and she'd spend the rest of her childhood like a ping-pong ball, going back and forth from house to house? That as a mother she failed to bring her the stability she thought all children should have, the one she grew up without? She brought Annabel into this world with the promise that she'd do everything she could to give her a good childhood, and quickly she realized now she'd failed her.

Finally she walked outside, and Annabel and Vivian were playing in the swing. Calleigh showed Annabel the phone and she came over quickly, joining Calleigh on the couch and she absolutely beamed when she found out her father was on the line.

"Daddy?" Annabel exclaimed, laughing quickly at something her father said, her face lit up like a Christmas tree. Looking at her, so happy and clueless, Calleigh couldn't help feeling her heart would break, but she tried to act casual as she sat there, feeling the ground crumbling beneath her.

Vivian walked in, her arms crossed as she watched them, and for once Calleigh didn't reproach her presence.

"Daddy, are you coming to get us?" Annabel said into the phone.

Calleigh closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, and finally she felt all the control leaving her. Her eyes filled with tears and she stood up, and though Vivian reached for her hand Calleigh quickly retrieved it and began to make her way upstairs.

A few tears slid out of her eyes this time, but she quickly wiped them away.

to be continued


End file.
